Chrysanthemums
by detectivejigsaw
Summary: There's this thing that's popular in anime called hanahaki disease, where someone who's suffering from unrequited love starts coughing up flower petals, and if left unchecked they die. Usually it's applied to romantic love, but there are exceptions... Written because apparently I can't get enough of torturing Stan.


**Me: this is kind of a weird, possibly cliche idea, people might not like it.**

**Also me: screw it, I'm sending it out into the world anyway.**

**Darn plot bunnies.**

* * *

The night he got Ford back, was promptly rejected again, and retaliated by essentially telling Ford that he was no longer his family, Stan went back upstairs and threw up in his bathroom.

The whole situation was kind of unusual, and not just because Stan had a very strong stomach on a normal day.

It wasn't a normal kind of throw-up; as a matter of fact, what came spewing out of his mouth was a cluster of bright red and yellow chrysanthemum petals.

And when he saw them, his reaction would have probably seemed even stranger: he leaned his forehead against the side of the toilet, and groaned in a tired voice, "Not again…"

It had started after he was first kicked out of his home. He'd just started coughing one night, until finally he'd spat a single petal out of his mouth. He figured he inhaled it by accident when he was driving with the window down, and just threw it away and forgot about it.

Then, when he began coughing them up on a semi-regular basis even if the windows were rolled up and he hadn't been anywhere near flowers recently, he told himself it was just something he ate, however weak of an excuse that was. But after almost a month of hacking up the occasional flower petals, he'd realized it was something really weird.

And his stomach hurt and his eyes watered, because he really wanted to find Ford and tell him about it, he knew he'd be so interested and want to find out what was causing the phenomenon and figure out how to fix it with his genius brain, and he knew that would probably never happen again.

* * *

It had gone on like that for the next ten years; every once in a while he'd find himself with that nasty tickling sensation in his throat, and have to spend a few minutes coughing until he'd got all the stupid flower bits out (it created a few awkward situations, but it also helped him escape from prison once, so hey, mixed bag). Then, after the portal incident, it was just something that happened every few months, or on special anniversaries like their birthday. It was like even the illness realized that Stan couldn't afford to be sick all the time, not when he had a job to do. And it almost stopped altogether when the kids came for the summer, enough that he almost forgot about it.

But apparently it wasn't gone at all-just dormant.

Stan wondered if he should be concerned that some of the petals in the toilet looked a little...bloody now.

Stan had looked up his symptoms before, of course. Ford was the smart one who enjoyed researching stuff, but that didn't mean Stan couldn't do it if he had to.

He'd finally discovered that this thing had a name-hanahaki disease-and where it supposedly came from. He'd wondered if it was due to his lingering fond memories of Carla or something, before the obvious answer came to him.

And further research had shown him that there was a controversial operation that could take care of it.

Operations, however, cost money. And when he read about the possible side-effects of getting rid of the flowers supposedly growing in his lungs...no, better to just save his money and worry about saving Ford instead.

Now, however, when he was gonna be kicked out at the end of the summer and left in the streets again, the idea of the operation became considerably more tempting...but he still hesitated to make an appointment.

Something in him just kept thinking, _It's not worth it._

* * *

He never intended for anyone in his family to find out, especially not Ford.

However, almost a month after his brother came home, he had an especially bad coughing fit one evening that ended with his spending three minutes retching and hacking into the trash can in his room, and an enormous pile of bloody petals.

Stan groaned, and when he managed to regain enough strength to stand up he rinsed his mouth in his bathroom sink, then pulled out the bag and took it to the trash bins. Then he went back inside, only to meet Ford in the front doorway.

His gut churned with that familiar cocktail of rage and hurt at the sight of his twin, and for a moment he felt like he was about to puke up more petals right there in front of him. Instead he started to push past, not bothering to worry about proper etiquette (_quelle surprise_)-to his surprise, though, Ford suddenly stopped him by pressing a hand to his shoulder.

"What's that?"

He frowned at something on Stan's face.

Stan reached up to see what the problem was-and actually felt his heart pound when he realized there was a petal stuck to his chin.

Quickly he grabbed it off and crushed it into his hand, letting out a nonchalant laugh.

"Heh, looks like Mabel's been messing around me with her crafts projects again. Crazy kid..." And he stepped around his brother, heading for the kitchen to get dinner started.

After the twins had gone up to bed, though, and while Stan was washing the dishes, Ford rematerialized in the kitchen doorway wielding a handful of the petals and a very perturbed facial expression.

"Stanley, I found these in the trash. Please explain."

Stan froze with his hands in the dishwater for a few seconds, before finally asking, "...Why were you going through the trash?"

"I wasn't-that's not the point here!" For some reason Ford was becoming increasingly agitated. "There's _blood_ on these flower petals, and I know that Mabel definitely does _not _use blood in her crafts projects! What is going on?"

Stan bristled. "Nothin'."

"Don't give me that!" Ford slammed the pieces of flower onto the counter-which Stan had just barely scrubbed down, he thought in annoyance. "Have you been-have you been coughing these up?"

Stan turned back to the dishes, rinsing off the one he'd just been cleaning and putting it in the drying rack without speaking.

"Stanley, that's very serious! It's called-"

"Hanahaki disease, I know."

He managed to get a small grain of dark pleasure out of the flabbergasted look his brother was giving him.

_Sorry, know-it-all, but I get the point this time._

After a few seconds, Ford pulled himself together enough to demand, "Then did you know that it's fatal if it goes untreated?"

Stan shrugged. "Yeah, I know."

He began draining the water, the noise accompanying the spluttering from his right. Once the sink was empty, he rubbed it down with a sponge, ignoring the way his hands were becoming the tiniest bit shaky and unsteady. Until finally Ford whispered, "Don't you understand what that means, Stanley? You-there's doctors who can fix it, take the flowers out-I'm sure whoever this person is, your feelings for her aren't worth your life!"

Stan had to close his eyes and grip the edge of the sink for a few seconds, until he could pull himself together enough to say, "I'm not getting any operations, Poindexter."

"Stanley!" Ford was starting to raise his voice in a way that might disturb the kids. "Don't you understand what I'm telling you? You're going to _die_!"

That was the last straw. Stan rounded on him. "Yeah, what's it ta you?! It just fixes one more problem for you, doesn't it!"

Ford's jaw flapped open, making him look like an owl who'd been frozen mid-hoot or something.

Before he could come up with some kind of answer, Stan turned on his heel and stormed out of the kitchen, heading for his room.

He couldn't deal with this.

On his way up the stairs, he may or may not have had to clean some glitter out of his eyes (that was the story he was sticking with, and nobody was around to prove otherwise).

* * *

The next day Ford accosted him before he could get started on breakfast, dragging him by the arm to the vending machine and from there to the foot of the stairs, presumably because he wanted to talk where the children wouldn't hear them. Somehow Stan found himself allowing it meekly, figuring it was better to just get this conversation over with.

For a few minutes, though, Ford didn't say anything. He just paced back and forth in front of him, looking like he was struggling for the right words but couldn't quite get them out.

Stan watched him do this for a while, and then got tired of it and tried to go back upstairs. Before he could even get his foot on the first step a large arm swung out in front of his chest, blocking him.

"Don't even think about it."

Stan shoved him off. "If you got somethin' you wanna say, Sixer, spit it out already. I got things ta do today, and one of those is feedin' the kids."

"Look," Ford growled, "I just-" his hands ran through his hair for a second, before he said, "If-if you're too cheap to pay for the operation, maybe we can talk to whoever is responsible, see if she has any feelings for you at all. That's another way to fix the problem, it'll-excuse me?"

Stan had let out a derisive snort of laughter. "It ain't that kind of thing, Stanford."

Ford gave him that "confused owl" look again. "What are you talking about? Hanahaki disease is solely based on-"

"Romantic love, yeah, I got it. But I think it's a mutated strain or somethin', cuz I thought about it a lot and it's not like that with me." He had wondered when he first realized what the disease was, searched his feelings up and down to see if it could somehow provide the answer, but...no. Just no.

He thought about blurting the truth out, just to see Ford's reaction. His mouth stayed stubbornly shut, however. Waited to see if maybe the supposed genius could figure it out on his own.

"Then what is it like?!" Ford demanded, hands curling in front of him in frustration. "Hanahaki is caused by feelings of unrequited-" And then his big brain finally caught up with his mouth. "Oh."

"Took you long enough," Stan whispered. "And trust me, it's not like that. I thought about the possibility, but…" he grimaced. "Eugh. Sorry, but you're not my type, Poindexter."

The attempt at humor didn't appear to help at all. Ford was still gaping at him, eyes swirling with emotions that Stan didn't feel like trying to understand. So he just said, "I gotta go take care of the kids. Try not ta catch flies while you're down here," and went back upstairs.

This time Ford didn't try to stop him.

* * *

Stan assumed that was the end of the conversation.

Ford would go on doing whatever it was he did in the basement, and keep ignoring the mere mortals who weren't super geniuses like him (except for Dipper, who he was probably gonna steal away from them) until the end of the summer, when Stan would leave, never seeing him again-for real this time, not like all the other times he'd thought he'd never see him again. Especially since this might be his last-no, don't think about that.

He didn't expect Ford to come upstairs again, after Stan had finished suckering some fresh rubes out of their money and sent them off, wearing a determined glare.

"Stanley, we need to talk."

Stan uttered a disgusted snort. "Yeah, 'cause that always goes so well." He started to turn away for the third time-

"Stanley. Please."

Stan took a deep breath, and slowly let it out. The flowers seemed to almost be rustling in his throat as he turned towards Ford again.

"What?" He tried to ignore the way his heart sank and his stomach curdled.

All Ford said was, "I think I need to show you something." He reached into his coat pocket and pulled that something out.

Something that made Stan's eyes pop, and his breath catch.

"I had the same worry you did at first, but then this morning, when you suggested it was a mutated strain…" he gave him an oddly sardonic smile. "...it made sense. This is Gravity Falls, after all-you can never expect even the supernatural things to behave like it's supposed to."

"...It started after I first got kicked out," Stan muttered, finally finding his voice. "It got worse after you came back, though. After-you know."

"That's when it first happened to me," Ford said. "When you went upstairs, that's when I coughed up the first one."

Stan closed his eyes. "Sorry." He hoped Ford knew he wasn't just talked about what he'd said.

A hand lightly touching his shoulder had him hesitantly opening them again.

Ford looked back down at the cluster of black and blue petals in his other hand, and then replaced them in his coat pocket. "I don't know about you, but I'm feeling better already."

"Yeah. Me too."

Stan had a feeling he wouldn't be coughing up anymore flowers.

* * *

**And then the knuckleheads actually start talking to each other again, and eventually reach a point where they can take Mabel's advice to hug it out. And hopefully work together to prevent Weirdmageddon.**

**For those of you unfamiliar with it, the idea with hanahaki disease is usually that the afflicted person starts coughing up flower petals, and sometimes even full flowers. There is a medical procedure to remove the flowers, but it often has side effects. It can also take away the person's feelings for the person, sometimes to the point where they won't even remember them, and sometimes it takes away their ability to fall in love altogether (in this case, Stan is more concerned about losing his memories of his twin).**

**I picked chrysanthemums because they often represent loyalty, which Stan definitely has. Red ones also represent love, while yellow are rejection or sadness, which definitely also applies to Stan. And Ford's are black and blue because those colors in flowers are supposed to represent mystery, and it couldn't have been more appropriate it if tried.**

**I know some people might still see this as Stancest, and y'know, you can believe what you want. But personally, I have the same opinion as Stan on the subject: eugh.**


End file.
